British Airways Visa Signature® Card Review

Note: Some offer details in this article have expired and/or are being changed by the issuer. Appropriate updates will be applied to the article when the changes have been finalized.

Have you ever considered using a credit card from a foreign airline? When most Americans look for a card to earn frequent flyer miles, they first turn towards domestic carriers such as American, United, Delta, or Southwest.

But increasingly, foreign carriers have been offering credit cards to Americans that can offer superior value. The British Airways Visa Signature® Card from Chase is currently being offered with a sign-up bonus of up to 100,000 miles. In addition, it offers some features and benefits you can't receive from other airline cards.

How this Card Works

New applicants can earn 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 on new purchases within three months of account opening. Another 25,000 bonus miles can be earned after spending a total $10,000 within the first year of account opening, for a total of 75,000 miles. And if you are able spend a total of $20,000 in your account's first year, then you'll receive the full 100,000 mile bonus offer.

Another unique thing about this card is the opportunity to earn a Travel Together Ticket from British Airways after spending $30,000 in any calendar year. The Travel Together Ticket can be redeemed for a round-trip companion award in any class of service when you book an award for yourself on a flight operated by British Airways. However, you will be still be responsible for paying taxes, fees, and British Airways imposed fuel surcharges for both tickets, which can be substantial.

This card offers 3x miles for British Airways purchases, and one mile per dollar spent elsewhere. Benefits include baggage delay insurance, lost luggage reimbursement, purchase protection, and extended warranty coverage. And as a part of the Visa Signature program, you also receive access to numerous travel benefits and shopping discounts.

There's a $95 annual fee for this card, and no foreign transaction fees.

What You Can Do with British Airways Miles

Experienced travelers know that airline miles are only as valuable as what you can redeem them for. British Airways calls their miles "Avios," and it operates its Executive Club frequent flyer program differently from most other airlines. First, it has a distance based award chart that can offer some advantages. By just looking at the distance of a flight, British Airways charges fewer miles than other airlines for shorter flights. For example, economy class award flights of 650 miles or less outside of North America can cost as little as 4,500 miles each way. In North America, all flights of 1,151 miles or less cost 7,500 miles each way in economy class. Yet most other frequent flyer programs charge a single price of 25,000 miles for a round-trip domestic award flight in economy class.

Furthermore, British Airways is part of the OneWorld Alliance, which includes partners such as American, Cathay Pacific, LATAM, Qatar, Qantas, and Royal Jordanian. British Airways miles can also be used for award flights on non-OneWorld partners Alaska Airlines and Aer Lingus.

Sadly, the biggest disadvantage of the British Airways program is the outrageous fuel surcharges that they impose on many of their award flights. It's not uncommon to have to pay hundreds of dollars in surcharges to redeem your miles, even as fuel prices themselves are at the lowest prices in years. In some instances, travelers have found British Airways fuel surcharges to exceed the price of an economy class ticket. Other times, if you have an award ticket, it may be worth it to pay nearly the cost of an economy class ticket in order to fly in business or first class. Thankfully, flights within North America that are operated by British Airways partners are usually exempt from these surcharges.

Examples of Excellent Value for Using British Airways Avios

1. Flights on American and Alaska to Hawaii from the West Coast. While most frequent flyer programs charge additional miles to fly to Hawaii, the British Airways system just looks at the mileage flown. And if you are flying from the US west coast to Hawaii, you'll pay just 25,000 miles round trip. This includes American and Alaska flights from places like Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and even Anchorage Alaska. This card's sign-up bonus alone is sufficient to receive four round-trip flights from the west coast to Hawaii.

2. Flights under 1,151 miles. British Airways charges just 7,500 miles each for these flights. For example, you could fly from New York to Miami, Dallas to Cancun, Chicago to Vail Colorado, or Los Angeles to Vancouver Canada.

3. Short-haul while overseas. Outside of North America, you only need 4,500 miles for an award flight of 650 miles or less. This means that you can fly from London to Nice, France, Copenhagen Denmark, or Milan Italy. There are also dozens of flights that meet this criteria on Qantas in Australia, JAL in Japan, or on British Airways partner Comair in South Africa. Your 100,000 mile sign-up bonus can be good for over 20 of these tickets!

4. Flights to Ireland. British Airways is partnered with Aer Lingus, which uses a different award chart that takes into account peak and off-peak times. But during off-peak dates, you can fly to Ireland from several destinations in the United States for just 26,000 miles round-trip. These destinations include New York-JFK, Newark, Washington, Chicago, and Hartford Connecticut. Even the standard rate of 40,000 miles round-trip is not too bad.

Advantages

This card has an incredible sign-up bonus that can be worth several award tickets. The British Airways frequent flyer program is an excellent program, especially for short-haul awards that would cost more miles with other programs. It also has several very useful partners such as Alaska and American, so you don't necessarily have to use your rewards for flights with British Airways. The travel together ticket can be very valuable, so long as you understand the expensive fuel surcharges imposed on these tickets by British Airways. Finally, if offers three miles per dollar spent on British Airways tickets, while most airline credit cards only offer double miles for ticket purchases.

Disadvantages

The key weakness of this credit card is British Airways policy of imposing fuel surcharges on award flights, which can exceed $1,000 round-trip. Therefore, this card is best for those who plan on using British Airways miles for flights on its partners. This offer also requires $20,000 of spending within a year to earn the full 100,000 miles, which may be out of reach for some cardholders.

Bottom Line

The British Airways Visa Signature® Card has an incredible sign-up bonus that can be extremely valuable in certain circumstances. Once you understand how to get the most value from your British Airways miles, you will appreciate why this is a unique offer.

Editorial Note: The information related to British Airways Visa Signature® Card has been collected by Credit Cards Explained and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of this card.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Steele is one of the leading journalists covering the credit card industry and travel rewards. His work appears at many of the top personal finance websites and is regularly syndicated by mainstream sites such as MSN Money and Yahoo! Finance.

Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer.

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Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer.

Credit Cards Explained may earn affiliate commissions from our partners on this page. These commissions do not affect how we select, rate, or review products. To find out more, read our complete terms of use.